The afternoon sneaks up on us, and once again, we sit outside with new guests. Our neighbors Catalino and Polonia have stopped by, their tanned and wrinkly faces making their white clothes pop against their skin. My face shows the obvious fear these men have instilled in me, so Polonia says, “Don’t worry about the gentlemen. They know who you guys are now, so you guys are safe.” My face turns white as I hear this. But I don’t want them to know who I am, I say to myself, though not to Polonia. To her, I just smile hesitantly.
I timidly ask her, “Aren’t you guys scared?”
Slightly giggling, she replies, “They have done more to stop crime than the government has--and to be quite honest,
we don’t even notice they’re here.”
Two years later, I look back to those seven days I spent in El Cirian and the impact those events had on my life as both a foreigner and as an indigenous villager of El Cirian. I was put into a surreal world that innocent villagers consider their “everyday lives.” The “gentlemen” prey on the naïve young men and women like vultures, luring them into their dangerous lifestyle. The villagers who have inhabited El Cirian for decades are forced to quickly adapt to the changes these outsiders have made. The presence of the malevolent, soulless men makes me realize the horrid lives millions of villagers live. Mexico has become the cartel land.
"My face shows the obvious fear these men have instilled in me, so Polonia says, 'Don’t worry about the gentlemen. They know who you guys are now, so you guys are safe.'"
El Cirian from above
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